


The Story of Tonight

by StanleyQuinn



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Dark Humor, Discussion of Rape, Discussion of prostitution, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation, poe's hero worship of general leia organa, which frankly she's earned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5718391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StanleyQuinn/pseuds/StanleyQuinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm here to drink my troubles away with the only person I trust to give me advice."  She waits for a punch line, but Poe's lips don't so much as twitch upwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Story of Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Rating for heavy discussion and themes but nothing explicit.

Leia almost doesn't get up to answer the door.  If it were an emergency, someone would have called her comm unit, and besides that, she recognizes the rather distinct pattern of knocking.  She sighs, considering how likely it is that the man on the other side of the door will just keep knocking, then rolls to her feet, ignoring the ache the motion produces in an old shoulder wound.  It'll rain soon, if it isn't pouring already.  Unsurprising, given that their new base is located deep in this planet's rain forest.  It rains almost every day.  

She keys open the door, raising an eyebrow at the bedraggled pilot on the other side.  Poe's quarters are on the other side of the open air launch field that splits the base, but he's apparently braved the rain, hair plastered flat to his forehead and a fine coat of water clinging to the bright red bottle he holds up.

 

"Pretty sure I said no to drinking out my sorrows a couple months ago, Dameron, not to mention a couple months before that," she reminds him dryly.  "Is this going to become a regular thing?"

 

"Ha," Poe intones, rolling his eyes.  "I'm here to drink my troubles away with the only person I trust to give me advice."

 

She waits for a punch line, but Poe's lips don't so much as twitch upwards.  "Not Snap?  Jessika?"

 

"Nope."  He rocks on his heels, waiting.  

 

"Must be about Finn and Rey, if you aren't going to them," she muses aloud, and his shoulders hunch up toward his ears.  The three of them have been very slowly circling around a relationship since Rey returned to the base a couple of weeks ago, but just earlier today Leia had heard from a reliable source (C3PO, who had it from BB-8) that the trio had gotten their act together sometime in the past few days.  "Honeymoon phase over already?"

 

"If we're doing this, it's happening behind a closed door," Poe stands up straighter.  Leia sighs and ushers him in, taking the bottle from him.  She can always kick him out if turns out this is another attempt to get her to 'spend some time with her grief', or whatever inane phrase the med-droid has come up with this time.  

 

She thunks down a pair of glasses on her table, surprisingly actually a matched set, as Poe finishes wrestling off his boots and coat at her door.  He'd gotten a new coat after insisting Finn keep his mother's now patched flight jacket, only to have the new jacket stolen by Rey upon her return. He's now on his third jacket in less than six months.  This one's too threadbare and worn, looking like it'll barely hold up to another good rainstorm, and it's soaked so badly that it looks black instead of a murky burgundy red color.  He makes an effort to slick back his hair as he sits, but it just makes the unruly pieces stick up endearingly at odd angles.  "So," Leia prompts him, cracking open the corked bottle. Fortunately, the liquid comes out of the bottle a reassuring amber color and not the screaming red color of the outside of the bottle.  He takes the alcohol, turning the glass in his hands.  

 

She pours her own glass.  Either this is actually serious, or she's just going to want the drink once Poe hits the end of his antics.

 

"I'm going to mess this up," Poe finally says.

 

"With Rey and Finn?" she asks, frowning.  Poe having a crisis of confidence about a new relationship is surprising but not worth trusting only her.  "I thought the three of you were finally on the same page, at least according to the gossip I heard."

 

"Yeah."  Poe frowns, brow wrinkling with some strange emotion.  "I think so?"

 

"Oh boy," Leia mutters, topping off her glass.

 

"We agreed to a date, to set some boundaries and discuss what a triad might look like for us, what we each wanted," Poe explains.

 

Sounds surprisingly patient and mature for Poe.  Leia loves the younger man, but he does tend to act first and think second.  "You think you messed it up while you were setting boundaries?" she fills in, and he shakes his head. 

 

"No, I think I handled the discussion fine."  Poe's mouth twists with an ugly bit of anger.  "Didn't punch a wall or anything."

 

That gets her attention.  "Poe, you're going to have to start explaining with more words," she informs him.  "I'm good at guessing, but no one is this good."

 

"Dinner was amazing," Poe tells her.  "Perfect.  We saved the heavy talking for dessert, because...  because I don't know, it seemed like a good idea.  And we were all on the same page, which I was worried about, because what if Rey wanted to be with Finn, but not me, and she just wanted to share?  I'm really hoping for something equal, and you know what?  So are they!"

 

"Okay," Leia drags the word out a little, puzzled.  "But you hit a road bump somewhere after that?"

 

"Sex," Poe blurts out, cheeks flushing an unbelievably deep shade of red.  "Sorry, if this is out of line or--"

 

"Poe," Leia interrupts him, sighing.  "You said you were coming to me as a friend, the only friend you were comfortable talking to about this."

 

"Right." Poe slumps in his chair, silent for a moment.

 

*-*

 

_The silence in the room is surprisingly stifling, and Poe wonders if he's badly misread something.  Is it possible both his brand new partners are actually asexual?  Rey looks angry, while Finn just looks baffled._

_"I think... maybe that means something different here?" Finn breaks the silence first.  "Sometimes, when units had problems figuring out who would be the unit leader, like I was, a trainer might suggest they figure it out that way.  It was a good way to break one of them, make them weaker.  We never had those problems in my unit though.  Do you really think we have to do that for this relationship?"_

_*-*_

The liquor isn't nearly smooth enough for the way she tosses it back, but it's that or punch something herself. She lets herself cough, once.  "Well, now I want to hit the wall," she informs him, still feeling the burn of her anger over the burn of the alcohol.  "And you confirmed, what he's describing, what he's thinking... he's describing institutionalized sexual assault?"

 

"Yeah, that's it exactly," Poe confirms.  He refills her glass, then tops off his own and takes a generous gulp.  "I'm looking to Rey and hoping maybe she's going to help me set the record straight, but..." 

 

*-*

 

_"That's not really how it worked on Jakku," Rey's anger appears to have dissolved into her very puzzled, crinkled forehead.  "It's just... I don't understand, what are we bartering for?"_

_*-*_

Leia's hand tightens around her glass, and for a moment, she can feel all it's stress points, weaknesses, and just how easy it would be to shatter the damn thing with her own hand if she applies pressure just _there_...  She takes deep breaths, the kind Luke taught her, and reigns her thoughts back in, calming herself.  "So what did you do?"  Part of her is afraid Poe ran -- she wouldn't blame him if he did -- but the other part of her is hoping that, as usual, he's exceeded her expectations.

 

"Suggested that it had gotten late, and we weren't quite speaking the same language," Poe replies.  "Had BB-8 load up their readers with every sex ed reference it could get its circuits on and download ' _Romance of the Herizads'_  for them to watch."

 

Leia snorts, barely holding in laughter.  "' _Romance of the Herizads'_?" she asks, laughing deeply when he nods.  The movie is a sappy ball of fluff story about a triad, with highly romanticized sex scenes.  Thinking a little more about it, she can see why Poe selected it.

 

"Yeah, wouldn't be my first choice either," he admits, frown finally cracking and a little bit of a rueful smile tugging at his lips.  "I just tried to think of the most opposite portrayal of sex from what they had going in their heads, the least offensive and soft sort of thing, and that's all I could think of."

 

"I think you were hoping to confuse them enough that they'd be open to building up from a brand new paradigm, hopefully based on the educational materials you provided," Leia concludes, sighing as she finally gets her laughter under control.  "To be honest, it's seems like it might not be a bad idea, Poe."

 

"Really?" he sits up a little, eyes shining hopefully.  

 

"Yeah," she confirms.  She hides her smile by running her glass against her lower lip.  "I'd have punched the wall."

 

Poe barks out a harsh laugh then takes a generous gulp of his liquor.  "Still sort of want to," he informs her.  "Still may end up doing it."

 

"You confirmed though, neither of them had..." she considers her words for a moment.  "Bartered or--"

 

Mercifully, Poe cuts her off.  "No, neither of them," he tells her, and she knocks back her own glass, emptying it to get rid of the bitter rush of relief filling her mouth.  

 

"Kriff," Leia curses, shaking her head.  "Will the evils of humanity ever stop surprising me?"

 

"Nah, never.  If you get jaded, we're all screwed," Poe informs her.  He finishes his own glass and then, prompted by the quick tap of her fingers, refills them both. 

 

"Someday, maybe we'll find this funny," Leia muses, sighing.  "Everything gets funny once it's been long enough."

 

Poe makes a vaguely agreeing noise.  "Someday," she suggests, taking a sip of her drink to help ease out a dark chuckle.  "Someday you find yourself telling your best pilot about that time you kissed a cute guy and later found out he's related to you."

 

Poe actually chokes on his drink, sputtering between laughter and coughing. He's heard the story before, but it never fails to crack him up.  Leia smirks, then adds, "Someday you're gonna tell Snap to ask Finn -- and it'll have to be Finn, not Rey, because she'd just kick his ass, but someday, you'll tell him he should go ask Finn where babies come from."

 

Poe is laughing helplessly now, head coming down to rest on her table.  "Kriff, where do those two think babies come from?" he mumbles into the table.  "I feel like I should make a list of things I need to ask them, all these little mines buried inside them just waiting to blow up in my face."

 

"You're a good man, Poe," Leia tells him, draining her glass so she can pretend she doesn't see the way her compliment makes his spine straighten and his eyes light up when he looks up at her.  "You'll navigate the minefield just fine.  No one I'd trust with those two more than you."

 

"Thanks," Poe nods, mimicking her and draining his glass.  "For the talk and the vote of confidence.  I just needed someone to..."  he trails off, making a face, and she nods, understanding everything he isn't saying.  He re-corks the bright red bottle but leaves it on the table as he goes to fetch his boots and jacket.

 

"Hang on," Leia says, as he plucks the still soaked and threadbare jacket off the peg by her door.  She goes over to the closet, to the very furthest end, where she makes an effort to never look.  But exactly where she knows it will be, a tough, worn but solid brown leather jacket hangs on its hangar.  She pulls it down, automatically inhaling the warm scent of the leather and something rougher and spicier underneath that lingers despite not being worn for years.  But this time, she pulls it out of the closet and hands it off to Poe.

 

"I can't--" he starts to say, and she silences him with a withering look.  

 

"What you can't do is keep running around this base in a sub-par coat," she informs him archly.  "And maybe if they know I gave you this one, your lovers won't steal this one?"

 

"I gave them the others," he protests, but he's taking the coat.  It's a little long when he pulls it on, but otherwise fits well.  "Thanks, General."

 

Her lips curl down a little at Poe's return to formality and titles.  "Don't forget your liquor," she tells him, and he waves her off.

 

"Keep it," he says.  "I have a feeling we'll be doing this again."

 

She nods, making sure to latch the door behind him once he's gone, then considers the bottle on the table and the hole in her closet for a long moment.  Next time, maybe she'll be bringing the liquor to him, she muses, suspecting Poe had been well aware of that when he left it behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken, of course, from the brilliant Hamilton. I liked the idea of cribbing on the drinking song, but also Poe telling his story of what happened that night. Also, I had no idea for a title, and when in doubt, always run for lyrical references!


End file.
